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Microsoft Rebrands WinFX

Lost in the hubbub last week over the pending retirement of Chairman Bill
Gates, Microsoft quietly changed the name of a key set of technologies coming
with Windows Vista.

WinFX was previously the overall name for a set of application programming
interfaces (API) that support new features in Vista. It will now be called the
.NET Framework 3.0.

"The Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly WinFX), is the new managed
code programming model for Windows," according to statements on the company's
Web site. The reason for the change, said officials, was to lessen confusion
over the relationship between .NET and WinFX.

"The .NET Framework has always been at the core of WinFX, but the WinFX
brand didn't convey this," said S. Somasegar, corporate vice president
of Microsoft's Developer Division, on his blog.

Although nothing has changed except the framework's moniker, it provides
a set of important features, not the least of which is the .NET Framework 2.0.
However, it also includes other important new capabilities.

These include the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which provides Vista's
new user interface and the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), the company's
architecture for building distributed applications. The two were originally
code-named "Avalon" and "Indigo," respectively.

Also included in .NET Framework 3.0 will be the Windows Workflow Foundation
(WWF), the programming model, engine and tools for building workflow-enabled
applications, and Windows CardSpace, Microsoft's distributed identity
technology which was recently renamed from InfoCard.